Comparison
Scriben vs Granola
Granola is a notepad that listens to your computer during a call. Scriben is a pen that captures the room while you write in it. This is not a quality argument, it is a where-do-your-conversations-happen argument.
- What it actually is
- SoftwaremacOS, Windows, iOS, Android
- A penIts own hardware, syncs to iOS
- Three years, one person
- $504Business, at $14 per user per month
- $129Once. There is no monthly
- What has to be running
- A deviceWith Granola open, hearing the audio
- NothingNo phone, no app, no network
- Writes on paper
- NoIt is an app
- YesA real 0.6mm ballpoint
Start here
What Granola does better.
If your day is back-to-back video calls, Granola is very good at exactly that, and it is free to start. You type your own shorthand during the call and it fills in around what you wrote, which is a better idea than a wall of transcript. If that is your whole working life, you may not need a pen at all, and we would rather say so here than have you find out after buying one.
Where each one works
The same week, on both.
Not a feature list. The actual situations a working week is made of, and what happens in each.
- A video call at your desk
- ✓
- ✓
- Notes you type yourself, enhanced afterwards
- ✓
- —
- A meeting across a table, laptop shut
- Phone app
- ✓
- A ward round, a site visit, a walk
- Phone app
- ✓
- Somewhere with no signal
- —
- ✓
- Capturing with nothing switched on at all
- —
- ✓
- Reaching your notes over MCP
- Business
- ✓
Granola runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android and captures using your computer’s audio rather than sending a bot into the call. Where a row says Phone app, Granola can do it — on a phone you are holding out. Checked 14 September 2026 on granola.ai.
Over time
Per seat, per month, for three years.
Granola’s Basic tier is $0 and limits how far back your history goes. The bars price the Business tier, which is the one that removes that limit.
After one year
After two years
After three years
Granola figures checked on 14 September 2026: Basic at $0 per user per month with limited meeting history, Business at $14 and Enterprise at $35, from the Granola pricing page. One seat, billed for three years. Prices and plans change. Check theirs before you decide, and tell us if anything here has gone out of date.
The rest of it
Everything else, side by side.
- Granola
- Scriben
- Does a bot join your call
- No. It uses your computer’s audio instead.
- No. There is no call to join.
- Older notes
- Unlimited meeting notes and history are part of the paid tiers.
- Yours, with no tier attached to how far back you can look.
- Model training opt-out
- Offered, and team-wide on Enterprise.
- Your recordings are not used to train models, ours or our providers’.
- What you carry
- Whatever you already own, running the app.
- The pen. 64GB, up to 18 hours, no phone and no network needed.
The real differences
Two, and one of them decides it.
01 / One needs a computer in the conversation
Granola listens to your computer’s audio. On a video call that is exactly right and nothing has to change. In a room it means the meeting now contains an open laptop, or a phone you are holding up. Scriben captures from the pen, so the conversation can happen at a table, in a car or on a ward round, and the thing capturing it is the thing you were already writing with.
02 / One is bought once
Granola is priced per seat per month, which is the normal way to sell software. Scriben is $129 for the pen and then nothing, ever, per person.
In short
What each one is good and bad at.
Both columns carry real drawbacks, ours included. A comparison where one side has nothing against it is an advert.
Granola
- Free to start, with AI notes on the Basic tier
- You type your own shorthand and it fills in around what you wrote
- Runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android
- No bot joins the call — it uses your computer’s audio
- Priced per seat, per month
- Something has to be running the app in the conversation
- Unlimited meeting history is a paid tier
- MCP and API access start at Business
Scriben
- $129 once, then nothing, per person
- Captures with nothing switched on at all
- Writes in real ink while it captures
- Works in a car, a ward round or anywhere with no signal
- No live typing surface to take your own notes into during a call
- One device you carry, not an app on everything you already own
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
Is Granola free?
Does Granola work for in-person meetings?
Do I need both?
Can I read my notes from Claude or Cursor?
Which should I buy?
Also worth comparing
The other three.
Anyone choosing between two of these is usually choosing between four. Every page uses the same rules and dates its sources.
Honestly
Which one to buy.
Buy Granola if your meetings live on your screen and you want better notes from calls you already take at a desk. Buy Scriben if the conversations that decide things happen away from one: the client across the table, the corridor afterwards, the site visit, the consultation. Plenty of people run both, and that is a sensible answer rather than a hedge.
§Recording and consent requirements vary by jurisdiction and setting. Record openly, ask first, and follow the rules that apply where you are. Our guide to recording lawfully sets out how.